Earlier this week, I headed off to meet store mangers of a leading DIY chain to talk about the new vision of sustainability. The old planet-hugging environmental talks don’t engage or inspire, they only serve to sell guilt for current behaviour that was perfectly acceptable a few years ago. Today sustainability is all about increased opportunity, prosperity and growth, without further damage to the natural environment. It’s about finding a new competitive advantage in the low carbon economy.
John, my taxi driver to the meeting, was enthused about this concept and like many cabbies wasn’t shy to give his views. Firstly he asked me in some detail what my aims were for the talk and how I would sell this vision, then about the audience type and how I was going to motivate them. Thereafter, the journey revealed a series of cabbie initiated ideas on how to engage store managers from the daft use of minor electric shocks (!) when you leave the PC on, to serious ideas on inter branch games, environmental rewards or recycling savings into bonus schemes.
Break it down
John could be anyone in any role in any business doing any job. He, like many friends or colleagues, is open and engaging about environmental improvement and not resistant at all. Overall, the vast majority of people do identify with the need to conserve our natural resources, but what makes them differ is how they need to be motivated and what changes they’re willing to accept. This is seen as resistance. Resistance is a reaction to a perceived fear of an uncomfortable change. For example, asking John to dump his Hackney Taxi for a Rickshaw would clearly create resistance, but changing to a hybrid engine would be very possible. The trick is to break change up into smaller more comfortable chunks to alleviate resistance. Yes, the goals you seek may take longer at the start but they soon pick up pace as resistance subsides.
Earning their trust John, my cabbie, was then placing then himself in the role of a Store Manager trying to empathize with their pressures and challenges. But of course selling a message to an audience who have multiple pressures isn’t easy. The tip here is to ask the audience what the steps should be once you have explained the vision and benefits of your plans. If they tell you how they can do it, they will buy into it. Yes the actions may not be dynamic as you intend, but will enable swift praise, give positive rewards which alleviate resistance and earn you trust for more challenging actions later on.
Haydn
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